Apologies if this is off-thread but not much activity on the board during the holidays.
I am delighted to see someone has finally grasped the nettle on this issue – IT editorial is at least pushing at the door of initiating the debate on what we all know to be inevitable i.e. either (a) we effectively surrender to the notion of a federalist Europe and all that entails if we want to stay part of the Euro or (b) we extricate ourselves from a currently broken system – remain in the EU but leave the Euro. Have i missed any option? I don’t think so.
It is unfortunate however, that the Times has preempted where that debate should take us by assuming that ‘saving the single currency’ should be the objective without a shot being fired in anger as to why that might not be in our best interests….it is of course the mainstream default position to take.
At the moment the Irish public is blindly being lead by a Government down the road of option (a) even though I do not believe they have been given a mandate to do so. We are in the process of federalist creep that will have far greater implications for this state than any treaties that have gone before and the debate on the issue needs to start now…not a few months before another treaty is put in front of our noses where fear rather than foresight will be guide the voting pen.
The public must have a stake in what our Governments negotiating position is before we are left with this inevtiable fait accompli that I believe all too many of the current government would love to see – Ms Creighton, Varadhkar et al.
@V Barrett
I’ve only been back at work for two days but it’s clear to me that the federalist option (a) tomtom drums are beating very loudly in PR circles at the moment… and they are being banged at the highest levels.
There are of course some who would say that option (b) is inevitable – and currently being engineered by some northern Europeans – for some of the peripheral countries and one of those could be Ireland.
It’s difficult to see our government changing course as they have been ‘told’ this is what they have to do….. or ‘the bunny gets it’ (as they would say in the TV cartoon South Park).
@ V Barrett
I agree that a debate is necessary. However, the choices are not (a) and (b) as you suggest. The Irish Times leader is the usual inchoate commentary based on a failure to define what exactly is meant by various terms in general use e.g. “federalism” which means centralisation of decision-making in some countries and the very opposite in others.
I would recommend the article yesterday addressed by the head of the ECB to the German people in the pages of Die Zeit as a better basis for discussion.
There are indications already that the debate in Ireland will be reduced, as in the past, to an absurd discussion on whether or not another referendum will be needed, obscuring completely the subject matter to be decided. If past experience is any guide, this will end up with a campaign of mutual ignorance on both sides.
In fact, it seems highly unlikely that Merkel will be able to dragoon other leaders into another bout of institutional soul-searching, at least in the short term. Wolfgang Munchau in his Der Spiegel blog sums up the situation in which Germany now finds herself largely courtesy of the hesitation waltz of Merkel in trying to get ahead of the euro crisis.
“I would recommend the article yesterday addressed by the head of the ECB …”
Quelle surprise.
Or in the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies: “He would, wouldn’t he.”
The German economy is softening due to a lessening in demand for German manufactures in the periphery of the EU, China, USA and other markets. This could cut two ways in the coming German elections. The German electorate recognises the need to stimulate the peripheral economies as a solution to rising unemployment in Germany or they see the periphery as an anchor around their necks. Germany, Austria, Finland and the Nederlands will all experience the EZ/EU recession over he next year. Deflation is as much of a threat as inflation. The periphery desperately needs a bout of inflation to escape its debt trap. The stable countries may stimulate to an extent that provides inflationary relief for the EZ as a whole.
What Ireland thinks or does will have little or no impact on the outcome. We can go along for the ride within the EZ or we can explore alternatives with France and the rest of the ailing periphery. If the EZ breaks up it will be largely the doing of the stable and well managed countries. In other words we will be passive survivors or casualties of events outside of our control. It has been thus since the 12th century, plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose.
@ Mickey Hickey
I would not disagree except in one respect and that is to note the paradoxical, rather than the impotent, situation of Ireland. While it is clearly in the country’s interest to emerge from “quarantine” as soon as possible, doing so may well be taken as evidence of a cure based on an equitable distribution of the burden of adjustment when it is obvious, on the basis of any objective assessment, that this is not true. Colm McCarthy has drawn attention to this conundrum (if I understood his last Sindo contribution correctly).
Germany may well be tempted to view the dramatic increase in trade with China (Merkel is there at present) as a get out of jail card. This would be an error of historically dramatic proportions as it is very clear that the health of the Chinese economy is intimately linked with the economic success of the EU as a whole and not just Germany.
The immense value of the contribution by Draghi is that it will, hopefully, shift the focus of the debate from the false premise – institutional change as a sine qua non – advanced by Merkel to what is actually being negotiated. Indeed, there is evidence that she is shifting her ground cf. the references by Munchau to Merkel’s comments that “her heart bled” for the plight of Greek pensioners, a comment likely to be taken with a grain of salt.
Incidentally, the latest opinion polls show the CDU in the ascendancy.
The stage is accurately set by the FT with regard to addressing the real question: is Germany willing to be bound by the rules applying to the euro on the same basis as all other participants? And the counterparty in the discussion is, indeed, the ECB both as an institution, as Draghi has pointed out, of the EU and as a forum of national representatives technically capable of coming up with the right answers.
10 replies on “Credit Reporting Bill 2012”
The EC’s 7th Review of Ireland’s programme is available here. Leaked this morning. Worth a post?
http://thestory.ie/2012/08/29/european-commission-review-of-irelands-bailout-programme/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Mortgage debt as % of GDP for 27
We are in fourth place, could be a lot worse.
alea.tumblr.com/post/26014887921/eu-per-country-mortgages-debt-as-of-gdp
A short video on Spain’s housing boom. (subtitled)
http://www.archdaily.com/268058/why-spains-crisis-is-the-end-of-an-era/?f=comments#comment-2708510
Apologies if this is off-thread but not much activity on the board during the holidays.
I am delighted to see someone has finally grasped the nettle on this issue – IT editorial is at least pushing at the door of initiating the debate on what we all know to be inevitable i.e. either (a) we effectively surrender to the notion of a federalist Europe and all that entails if we want to stay part of the Euro or (b) we extricate ourselves from a currently broken system – remain in the EU but leave the Euro. Have i missed any option? I don’t think so.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0830/1224323262684.html
It is unfortunate however, that the Times has preempted where that debate should take us by assuming that ‘saving the single currency’ should be the objective without a shot being fired in anger as to why that might not be in our best interests….it is of course the mainstream default position to take.
At the moment the Irish public is blindly being lead by a Government down the road of option (a) even though I do not believe they have been given a mandate to do so. We are in the process of federalist creep that will have far greater implications for this state than any treaties that have gone before and the debate on the issue needs to start now…not a few months before another treaty is put in front of our noses where fear rather than foresight will be guide the voting pen.
The public must have a stake in what our Governments negotiating position is before we are left with this inevtiable fait accompli that I believe all too many of the current government would love to see – Ms Creighton, Varadhkar et al.
@V Barrett
I’ve only been back at work for two days but it’s clear to me that the federalist option (a) tomtom drums are beating very loudly in PR circles at the moment… and they are being banged at the highest levels.
There are of course some who would say that option (b) is inevitable – and currently being engineered by some northern Europeans – for some of the peripheral countries and one of those could be Ireland.
It’s difficult to see our government changing course as they have been ‘told’ this is what they have to do….. or ‘the bunny gets it’ (as they would say in the TV cartoon South Park).
@ V Barrett
I agree that a debate is necessary. However, the choices are not (a) and (b) as you suggest. The Irish Times leader is the usual inchoate commentary based on a failure to define what exactly is meant by various terms in general use e.g. “federalism” which means centralisation of decision-making in some countries and the very opposite in others.
I would recommend the article yesterday addressed by the head of the ECB to the German people in the pages of Die Zeit as a better basis for discussion.
http://www.ecb.int/press/key/date/2012/html/sp120829.en.html
There are indications already that the debate in Ireland will be reduced, as in the past, to an absurd discussion on whether or not another referendum will be needed, obscuring completely the subject matter to be decided. If past experience is any guide, this will end up with a campaign of mutual ignorance on both sides.
In fact, it seems highly unlikely that Merkel will be able to dragoon other leaders into another bout of institutional soul-searching, at least in the short term. Wolfgang Munchau in his Der Spiegel blog sums up the situation in which Germany now finds herself largely courtesy of the hesitation waltz of Merkel in trying to get ahead of the euro crisis.
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/deutschland-ist-durch-angela-merkels-politik-erpressbar-geworden-a-852708.html
“I would recommend the article yesterday addressed by the head of the ECB …”
Quelle surprise.
Or in the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies: “He would, wouldn’t he.”
The German economy is softening due to a lessening in demand for German manufactures in the periphery of the EU, China, USA and other markets. This could cut two ways in the coming German elections. The German electorate recognises the need to stimulate the peripheral economies as a solution to rising unemployment in Germany or they see the periphery as an anchor around their necks. Germany, Austria, Finland and the Nederlands will all experience the EZ/EU recession over he next year. Deflation is as much of a threat as inflation. The periphery desperately needs a bout of inflation to escape its debt trap. The stable countries may stimulate to an extent that provides inflationary relief for the EZ as a whole.
What Ireland thinks or does will have little or no impact on the outcome. We can go along for the ride within the EZ or we can explore alternatives with France and the rest of the ailing periphery. If the EZ breaks up it will be largely the doing of the stable and well managed countries. In other words we will be passive survivors or casualties of events outside of our control. It has been thus since the 12th century, plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose.
@ Mickey Hickey
I would not disagree except in one respect and that is to note the paradoxical, rather than the impotent, situation of Ireland. While it is clearly in the country’s interest to emerge from “quarantine” as soon as possible, doing so may well be taken as evidence of a cure based on an equitable distribution of the burden of adjustment when it is obvious, on the basis of any objective assessment, that this is not true. Colm McCarthy has drawn attention to this conundrum (if I understood his last Sindo contribution correctly).
Germany may well be tempted to view the dramatic increase in trade with China (Merkel is there at present) as a get out of jail card. This would be an error of historically dramatic proportions as it is very clear that the health of the Chinese economy is intimately linked with the economic success of the EU as a whole and not just Germany.
The immense value of the contribution by Draghi is that it will, hopefully, shift the focus of the debate from the false premise – institutional change as a sine qua non – advanced by Merkel to what is actually being negotiated. Indeed, there is evidence that she is shifting her ground cf. the references by Munchau to Merkel’s comments that “her heart bled” for the plight of Greek pensioners, a comment likely to be taken with a grain of salt.
Incidentally, the latest opinion polls show the CDU in the ascendancy.
@ All
FYI
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5337f500-f295-11e1-86e0-00144feabdc0.html#axzz24g06Umyp
The stage is accurately set by the FT with regard to addressing the real question: is Germany willing to be bound by the rules applying to the euro on the same basis as all other participants? And the counterparty in the discussion is, indeed, the ECB both as an institution, as Draghi has pointed out, of the EU and as a forum of national representatives technically capable of coming up with the right answers.